A Hollywood stuntman moonlights as a wheelman but winds up in the mob’s crosshairs after a heist goes bad

Los Angeles stunt driver, Driver (Ryan Gosling: Crazy, Stupid, Love.), isn’t above moonlighting to make a little extra cash. He offers his services as a wheelman to robbers in the greater L.A. area.
He lives a monk-like existence, moving from one Spartan apartment to another and speaking with no one but his manager/boss/agent Shannon (Bryan Cranston: Contagion). Driver is content with that existence until he meets shy waitress Irene (Carey Mulligan: Never Let Me Go)...

The works of Agatha Christie, the queen of murder and reportedly the best-selling author of all time, are timeless because her characters transcend their settings. The privileged classes, it seems, are no happier than the rest of us, so we adore their frailties as much as the grandeur that surrounds them. Christie mysteries are box-office gold even when they’re so-so; Colonial Players’ The Unexpected Guest is diamond-studded platinum.
As this production’s...

Summer on the Chesapeake is not a perfect season, but I sure hate to see it go. Summer 2011 showed us its terrible temper in plenty of ways: weeks in the stew pot, torrential rains, gale-force winds or none at all, stink bugs on the peaches, mosquitoes on me. But such moods don’t overshadow my love for the thrill of a breeze, the exuberance of the leaves, the moment to seize.
For summer does not stay. The pool where I swim opens only one more day, inviting humans in...

Phoenix-like, a local landmark ravaged by fire has risen in time to celebrate Oktoberfest

On the second Friday of the Old Stein’s new lease on life, the liter glasses — each bearing the logo of one of the resurrected German bierstube’s 10 taps — stand ranged and polished on the shelves of a new-old, laborious refurbished bar, ready to be filled, raised and joined.
But it’s not yet time to shout zum Wohl!
Carpenters Scott Griffiths and Jeff Mattero pace the brand-new Honduran mahogany floor. Wainscoting —...

When Otto Mears first brought the railroad to Chesapeake Beach in 1900, he spent $6 million to build his dream town, a Monte Carlo on the Bay. More than a century later, Chesapeake Beach Resort partner Gerald Donovan is keeping that dream alive by rebuilding one of Mears’ original attractions.
“Mears built this huge boardwalk on the Bay, so people would come from around the D.C. area,” says Donovan. “He advertised it as one hour to the sea. It was...

The record-setting flood on the Patuxent River that shut down parts of Route 4 and Route 301 on September 8 also created chaos and danger for the animals living in Jug Bay marshes. Mattress-sized clumps of uprooted marsh plants and large logs floated fast downstream. The current in the river’s main channel was pumping three times faster than normal.
On the river’s edges, where wild rice and cattail stalks poked above the brown waters, the heads of red-bellied and...

If Irene pushed over a tree in your landscape, chances are it will never recover, so it is best that you remove it and replace it. Over the years, I have seen many home gardeners and arborists try to rescue toppled trees by bracing them. However, I have never seen full recoveries, even after the trees have been braced for several years. Shortly after the braces are removed, the trees begin leaning.
In the Garden this Week
Repot Your House Plants Now
Houseplants become...

First came Irene, then seven straight days of even greater deluge from Tropical Storm Lee. With so much forced inactivity, I was on the brink of angling despair. When the forecast suggested our first day of precipitation-free weather, I loaded my skiff.
Arriving at the ramp and launching at first light, I had no misconceptions about my chances. All the Bay’s tributaries had been swollen in flood stage for days.
Water was the color of coffee with...

The waning gibbous moon still rises on the heels of sunset at week’s end. But by the 20th, when Luna reaches last-quarter, it crests the horizon past midnight.
Thursday and Friday the moon keeps company with Jupiter, leading the gaseous giant the first night and trailing it the next. Both nights, the two are less than 10 degrees apart, more than close enough for your outstretched fist to block out both.
Luna spends the weekend amid Taurus the...

A trio of great performances beats sports movie clichés to make a knock out

The Conlon boys were born to fight. Father Paddy (Nick Nolte: Zookeeper) devoured their youth training young Tommy for wrestling matches and beating the life out of the family while drinking away his Vietnam flashbacks. After years of abuse, his wife makes a plan to run and takes Tommy. Older brother Brendan chooses to stay.
The boys grow into very different men.
Brendan (Joel Edgerton: Animal Kingdom) married his neighborhood sweetheart, enjoyed a brief...